and if so, i wanna know what time it shuts
by paper streets
Summary: He looks. It's when she knows she's lost. / Rock and Revy, always moving in reverse.


**notes:** this is sort of just a hodgepodge of scenes/headcanons i've written over the years of being obsessed with black lagoon woven together in a way that i hope flows alright? idk i have so many thoughts and feelings about this fucking show i'll never move on. title is from do i wanna know by arctic monkeys, which has always been my #1 rock/revy anthem ok ok

* * *

 _so have you got the guts? been wondering if your heart's still open_

 **and if so, i wanna know what time it shuts**

 **;;**

"Don't look at her, Rock."

The porcelain doll Japanese schoolgirl falling on her own sword, her dead companion's hulking body at her feet, the gunman clinging to her partner's neck, _look at me, Rock, look at me look at me don't look at_ -

He looks.

* * *

"Fuck, Revy, this is bad," Rock stammers. "This is so fucking bad."

He's panicking and she's really not sure why. She gets hurt a lot, that's just part of the job. She bleeds, Rock makes sure she's not dead, and they call it a day.

What is different about this one?

Her head is spinning though, and she's shivering, and can't quite focus on anything.

That's probably why.

He's still babbling something over her, he can't seem to get her leg to stop bleeding, it's still seeping through the bandages. She just wants him to _stop_ , for the love of god just stop.

"Shit, this is my fault. I'm sorry, fuck-."

Her arm feels heavy and detached when she lifts it up to haphazardly hook around the back of his neck.

Maybe it's the excessive blood loss and the fact that she's been in two consecutive car accidents today or the painkillers she _hasn't_ been allowed to take because _they will thin your blood, Revy, you'll bleed out faster_. She doesn't dwell too long on it. Instead, she pulls him down until his face smashes into hers and he stops talking.

(Again).

He looks so fucking surprised after, and she doesn't have the energy to tell him it wasn't the first time.

It's sometime later, when he's managed to get her leg to stop bleeding enough to leave it alone, that Rock's panic subsides and Revy can drift in and out of consciousness in peace. And its sometime around this time that Rock crawls into the bed with her.

He perches awkwardly on the sliver of mattress beside her.

She looks at him there, with his worried face looking like he got punched in both eyes, and smiles a weak, pitiful smile. "I feel fuckin' miserable."

There's no answer, but Rock puts his hands behind her and pushes her up into a half-sitting position, and she's too tired to question it. Rock slides behind her, knees on either side of her battered, shaking frame, and eases her back against his chest.

Usually, she'd fight it. Even though, yeah, she's the one that's now kissed him fucking twice. He still shouldn't be doing this, it's wrong, it's wrong it's-

Then he puts a cold hand on her sweat slicked forehead and it feels really-

Yeah.

"Just," she croaks out. "This once."

He laughs in one short burst, and she feels it resonate in his chest on her back. "Sure, Revy."

It feels…

His other arm drapes across her stomach and she lets that happen too.

It feels weird. It's the closest she's ever felt to someone-let someone get-and that thought alone is enough to make her fingers twitch for a trigger. But it's _Rock._

It's stupid fucking Rock, who she's spent nearly every day for a year trying to keep alive, who's always around, who hasn't gotten himself killed yet, who didn't walk away all the times she was so prepared to let him.

"Y'know, I'm glad I didn't fuckin' kill you, dipshit."

He laughs again.

It's also _Rock_ , the man with the fucking savior complex who seems to still believe he can undo her past and has the biggest fucking death wish she's ever seen, that puts himself in situations he really shouldn't and leaves her to deal with the consequences. Which, in most cases, means a gunfight, and that's really not so much a problem as it is an inconvenience.

"Glad you didn't kill me too."

She really kind of doesn't want him to move.

.

She wakes up to an empty bed and blood leaking from her bandages onto the already stained sheets.

Rock is asleep in the armchair.

* * *

When Rock leaves her on the park bench in the nicest neighborhood she's ever been in, she sits and braces herself to leave.

This is where Rock belongs. This is the life he should've had, the one he was meant for. The same life she took from him.

Which, she rationalizes, isn't entirely true. He could've walked away so many times, and there was a time where she would've been more than happy to pull that trigger. So to speak.

It clicked in her head the moment she looked at him at the carnival, surrounded by the soft lights of the lanterns in the cold air and thought-

You deserve so much fucking more than this.

And her?

Who fucking cares.

* * *

Balaika bares her teeth and stares down the barrel of the gun between Rock's eyes, but speaks directly to her.

"It will only bring you disappointment if you hope to have a life like his."

She knows, she knows, she _knows_.

* * *

The second time he leaves her in his too nice too clean neighborhood, she really thinks it's the end. And she's steeled herself up for it already. Thinks over and over again:

I want to see you walking away from me.

But he sits down and lights a cigarette. Doesn't look at her, but says, "I think I died the day I met you."

Just walk away, Rock, she thinks. _Fucking_ just walk away.

* * *

Rock never walks away.

* * *

Instead, Rock gets too attached to shit.

People die, people get killed, people kill. She's used to the cycle by now, but him? He's still clinging to some hero-complex the rest of them abandoned a long time ago.

He's still sitting on the deck long after watching that fucking kid die.

"Don't fuckin blame yourself, Rock," she says, standing over him after a while. "This shit happens." She turns away. Let him stay out here, nothing she says will make a difference.

His fingers catch her wrist and she stills, grits her teeth. He doesn't look at her.

She _knows_ and he knows she knows.

So she sits down, lights up, and says nothing.

* * *

"Do you think we did the right thing?"

She blows smoke into the night air and sees Gretel's blood paint the dock again. She scoffs.

Like it fucking makes a difference.

* * *

So they go to the Yellow Flag and get more drunk than usual. Rock more so than her, which is a feat in itself.

On a normal night, Revy would have drank twice as much as he could, or at the very least, he would've half-dragged half-carried her out before she got the chance. But tonight, Rock is slamming back his eighth (ninth?) glass of Bacardi.

Revy drums her fingers idly on the bar top beside her untouched glass. Her fifth. Maybe sixth. She can't remember.

She wants to shoot something.

Rock sets his glass down with a clink. "Y'know," he starts sluggishly. "Before she…" he trails off, and she can see his mind churning. "I think she—."

"Let's fucking go, Rock," she growls, twisting her stool around. She doesn't know what he's trying to say, but she has a strong feeling she doesn't want to hear it.

"She wanted me to…" His face scrunches up as he spits with venom, " _fuck_ her."

Revy's throat tightens, teeth clench—she needs to _shoot something, she needs to get out._

His eyes bloodshot and horrified, Rock looks at her helplessly.

There's a dull thump as her fist comes down on the bar. She raises the last shot to her lips, forcing the amber liquid down her throat, and slams the glass back on the counter.

She seizes Rock by the collar and commands, " _Come on."_

* * *

" _Revy."_

"Shut up."

"Do you think—."

"Fucking shut _up_ , Rock."

He doesn't, of course, big fucking surprise, and she finally gives up and fucking _makes_ him when she pushes him against the wall of the alley, crashes her skull into his skull into the wall. It's not a kiss, not really by definition. She's pinning him still and fucking _quiet_.

And she doesn't know what else to do.

She doesn't want to see him like this.

But she's not nearly drunk enough to rationalize it to herself, so she pushes herself back quickly and walks away before she can see Rock's face.

Of course, he's too fucked up to get home without her, and she's not heartless enough to let him try. Not right now.

He has to keep an arm around her shoulders to even stay upright and they stop twice so he can vomit in the street.

On one hand, Revy thinks he really, really owes her for this.

"I'm," he slurs against her collarbone as his head drops to her shoulder. "'M sorry, Rev."

On the other, she really hopes he doesn't remember.

When they finally reach his place, she drops his limp body on the bed and is hasty to get out.

He rolls onto his side, already looking half asleep, and reaches out for her wrist again. It's so pitiful, so _fucking_ sad.

She's got to get out, she's got to leave, she's got to fucking shoot something.

The door slams behind her when she flees. Typical.

Her head is swimming, she hadn't even realize how drunk she was until she's stumbling home alone. That aimless rage fills her again.

So she goes home and shoots up her own apartment, which only makes her feel _worse_.

She drinks more, alone, and feels like shit.

In the morning, she wakes up with a killer headache and a feeling she doesn't want to remember.

* * *

They press their cigarettes together in the back of the cop car. She feels something she can't place, something unspoken between them.

"Which side are you on?"

"I'm right where i'm sitting, Revy. i'm not anywhere else."

For whatever reason, she'll take that.

They get back to the Lagoon office sometime in the middle of the night, when it's too late to stay awake, but too early to bother going home. So they collapse on each end of the couch and let their legs meet somewhere in the middle.

It's quiet and dark, only the sounds of their mismatched breathing filling the room with the faint haze of the city outside.

Eventually, she looks at across from her at Rock, stupid stupid fucking Rock. He notices.

"Revy, I guess I never…" he starts hesitantly. Even in the dark, she can see the trepidation on his face. She bristles waiting.

Then: "Thanks for not killing me."

Her head drops back onto the arm of the couch and she snorts. "Yeah well, don't get too comfortable." Her voice lacks the bite he's used to hearing and she's used to having. Which, she thinks, is weird.

"Rock-." She doesn't lift her head back up. He does.

"Yeah?"

I guess i don't-

I'm-

I don't really want you dead.

"Never mind. Get your fucking foot off me."

So they fall asleep that way, and it's the same way Dutch finds them in the morning and scoffs because he knew the shitstorm would pass soon enough.

And yeah, maybe she doesn't want him dead.

The thought is just another useless string of words and feelings that die in her throat and stay there.

She never gives him an apology and he never asks for one.

* * *

"Don't look at her, Rock."

He looks.

It's when she knows she lost.


End file.
